KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The Kansas City Chiefs received their first loss of the season Sunday against their AFC West foe, the Las Vegas Raiders.
Kansas City's undefeated streak ended with the 40-32 loss to Las Vegas. Chiefs Kingdom thought the Super Bowl champs might rally in the fourth quarter after a 7-yard touchdown from quarterback Patrick Mahomes to tight end Travis Kelce.
The Chiefs followed with a two point conversion, this time Mahomes to running back Darrel Williams with 3:57 left in the game. But it wasn't enough to combat the Raiders' explosive offense. The loss came down to a scoreless third quarter for Kansas City and too many costly penalties.
"We haven’t had all these penalties so that part was new," Head Coach Andy Reid said during a post-game press conference, "and we really haven't given up that many big plays. So those things we just gotta make sure we clean up."
Defensive tackle Chris Jones added to Reid's comments.
"There are areas we can improve on," Jones said. "You eliminate penalties and execute on [the] defensive side of the ball."
Jones returned in Sunday's game against the Raiders after sitting out this past Monday with a groin injury.
Chiefs safety Tyrann Mathieu said after the loss he is more motivated than ever to bounce back.
"We gotta give those guys credit," Mathieu said. "They get paid too... Thought their coaches did a great job of catching us in certain coverages, and catching us on certain calls."
Offensive lineman Mitchell Schwartz said a lot of the holding penalties on the offensive line held back the Chiefs offense as a whole.
"Anytime you're going backwards, you know, holding calls and that nature it doesn't give the offense a chance to succeed," Schwartz said.
Mahomes agreed that the penalties and lack of scoring in the third cost the Super Bowl champs.
"We just didn't execute at a high enough level... Then in the second quarter we sorta made plays happen, but not at a high enough level.... and then the third quarter, we couldn't execute because we weren't running the plays the right ways and I wasn't finding the right leads," he said.
All in all, 10 penalties in total for the Chiefs for a loss of 94 yards, which included two touchdowns called back.
As far as injuries, offensive lineman Kelechi Osemele has two torn tendons in his knees and wide receiver Sammy Watkins has a hamstring injury. The Chiefs will monitor the extend of Watkins injury over the next few days.
